


The Cold Place

by holyfant



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-01
Updated: 2015-01-01
Packaged: 2018-03-04 19:04:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3083945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/holyfant/pseuds/holyfant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five moments in and around the morgue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Cold Place

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sumi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sumi/gifts).



> Written for x_disturbed_x/Sumi in the holmestice exchange. Happy holmestice, Sumi! :-) Thank you to bisexualcyborg and persiflager for the beta <3

1) Morgues have always and always will give Sally the creeps. It's the cleanliness, the complete un-lived-in-ness of the place. Death is a good duster, it seems.

(She likes the dirt and grit of police work. Life in all of its messiness. In her work she meets death all the time, but at the heart of it there is life.)

Lestrade is watching her from across the slab with amused eyes, though his face is solemn. One of the first skills acquired by the capable police officer: having such control over your facial muscles you can show an entirely different emotion in your expression than what you actually feel. She narrows her eyes slightly at him, daring him to make fun of her for feeling uncomfortable.

“I thought this case was cleared,” Dr. Hooper says, pulling on her gloves. 

“It was,” Lestrade tells her, “otherwise the body wouldn't have been transferred here. But we, ah, had an indication that we missed some clues during the investigation.”

Dr Hooper looks up from the scalpel she just picked up, and Sally is sure there's a smile somewhere in her expression, even if her mouth doesn't show it. ( _Ah_ , she thinks – _one of the first skills acquired by the capable morgue pathologist?_ ) It's only the second time they've met. Sally likes how Dr Hooper handles the tools; she has them lightly and loosely in her hand, as though she could at any time start twirling them. She looks comfortable with her post-mortem instruments. Sally enjoys it when people look casually competent when they're doing what they do – it's probably part of the reason she disliked Holmes and his showing-off so instantly.

As though summoned by the thought, Dr Hooper says: “Sherlock,” and the way she _states_ it, not even _asking_ but just _assuming_ , makes Sally's mildly pleased assessment of how the doctor's fingers gently hold the scalpel turn sour.

“Actually, no,” she says rather waspishly, ignoring Lestrade's look. “ _I_ reviewed the evidence and saw the inconsistencies.”

“Oh,” Dr Hooper says, and she flushes a little – a spot of blooming pink in the over-bright, clinical light of the morgue. “That's – I'm sorry, Sergeant, I didn't mean –”

“We do actually sometimes manage to solve crimes without someone holding our hand,” Sally says, still snappish but somehow immediately mollified by Dr Hooper's fumbling, and the way she blinks quickly at Sally, a few times in a row. Sally opens her mouth to tell her how Sherlock Holmes is completely without respect for proper crime scene protocol and has contaminated more than one murder scene with his carelessness, but Lestrade – knowing her well – smiles one of his barely-there, maximum-effect smiles at Dr. Hooper. 

“So, Molly, can you please open his spleen for us? Would save us an awful lot of trouble if you'd just do it so we don't have to get our pathologist on him again without being sure there's something to look for.”

“Yes, of course,” Dr Hooper says. She blinks again, still looking at Sally. That's why Sally sees it happening: the moment when she goes from being caught-out and awkward to being a professional. Her eyes shutter and her jaw sets a little. 

She balances her scalpel on a fingertip before she starts cutting into the corpse.

*

“So, _Molly_?” Sally says to Lestrade as they leave St. Barts, raising a suggestive eyebrow.

Lestrade, unbothered as always, shrugs. “We've met – you know, _socially_. Through Sherlock. She was at John Watson's wedding too. Sat at the same table.”

“Oh really,” Sally says, interest waning a little. 

“Yeah. Poor girl. Was still head over heels for Sherlock at the time,” Lestrade says carelessly as he pushes the button that opens the sliding doors. “Not sure about now. I don't know how she keeps it going, anyway, that flame. Sherlock does everything he can to extinguish it.”

“Ugh. She _really_ needs to get out more,” Sally says, scowling a little at the thought of anyone fawning over Holmes and his antics. 

Outside, the air is crisp with spring. They walk along easily, perfectly in step as always, enjoying this little respite.

“Actually,” Lestrade says after a while, “Molly could probably use a change of scenery.” When Sally looks at him, his eyes are dancing with mirth again. “I should give her your number, what do you think?”

“Oh, shut up, guv,” Sally says, and hits his forearm with her fist.

 

2) “Oh, you're here,” Dr Hooper says in genuine surprise when she spots Sally while coming out of the morgue entrance doors.

“Er, yes, of course,” Sally says as she gets up from the hospital bench, frowning a little. “Am I – early? Didn't we say –”

“Eight, yes!” Dr Hooper says, her voice shooting up a little. She's still looking at Sally with wide eyes, as though Sally is something unexpected and miraculous. “I just sort of – I guess I assumed –”

“That I wasn't coming?” Sally asks. 

Dr Hooper's eyes widen even more. “No!” she squeals. “I mean, I... well. Yes.”

Sally looks at her. “Do you often call people up for a date and then don't have them show up?”

Dr. Hooper touches a hand to her hair and runs it back, smoothing out her ponytail. “It's – it's happened, yeah.”

“Well, I'm not the kind of person who says yes if I mean no,” Sally says. 

They have a surprisingly intense, long moment of eye contact, standing in front of the morgue door of St Barts, the lights hellishly strong and unflattering, the weird quiet of the domain of the dead around them.

Dr Hooper is the first to speak. “Okay,” she says. Her voice is a little high, and then she blinks – one, two, three times – and drops her gaze. The moment between them deflates, and Sally is slightly relieved for it – that was nearly uncomfortably strong for some pre-date chatter. 

“Is it okay if I take another five minutes in the loo to freshen up a little? And wash my hands properly?” Dr Hooper shows Sally her hands in an awkward version of forward jazz hands. “You know, _dead people_ ,” she says smiling, and then her mouth goes into a little _o_. “Oh god, please pretend I didn't say that. I didn't – I mean, I did, but –” The flush starts rising again: little spots of colour in her cheeks.

Sally finds herself smiling. “Don't worry, I've touched my fair share of corpses today as well.”

Dr Hooper answers her smile, seemingly unconsciously. They stand looking at each other for another brief moment, and then Dr Hooper tucks her hands into her pockets. “So I'll just – I'll be right out.”

“I'll be here,” Sally says.

*

“I suppose I should start thinking of you as Molly now, instead of Dr Hooper?” Sally says as they walk towards the hospital exit.

Dr Hooper – Molly – blinks rapidly a few times. It's more noticeable now: she's put on a bit of mascara in the loo so her lashes stand out. Her lips are slightly darker than they were before, as though she put on some lipstick and then changed her mind and tried to rub it off. It suits her. “You thought of me as Dr Hooper?”

“'Course,” Sally says. “Professional to professional, right?”

“Yes, I suppose,” Molly says, but she sounds wondering.

“You mean to say you didn't think of me as Sergeant Donovan?”

“Oh, of course, I did! But it's... you're a lot more...”

Sally looks at her as she opens the door for the both of them.

“... impressive,” Molly finishes, and then ducks her head in clear embarrassment. She brings up a hand to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear.

Sally looks at her in surprise, and then laughs. “God, can you please say that again at least once tonight, so I can tape it and play it back to the sods at work who always call me _darling_ and _luv_ and tell me to fetch the coffee?”

Molly looks up and smiles, seeming to be relaxing a bit as they walk side by side. “That happens to me too. It's... well.”

They share a small, knowing look.

“I wouldn't have expected you to have to deal with something like that,” Molly says.

“Don't get me started,” Sally says. “Lestrade is great at keeping it in check, but when he's out of earshot... Don't get me wrong, though – I tell them to shut their gobs all the time, and by now most of them have got the message.”

They walk in silence for a short moment. It's not exactly companionable, but it's not awkward either.

“Well, if you need a second opinion to support your – your gob-shutting claims,” Molly says as they stop for a traffic light, “I'll definitely make sure to mention how impressive you are again at least once tonight.”

Sally grins at her. Molly's answering smile is slow to unfold, but it widens beautifully. The light changes to green.

 

3) Sally waits in the morgue changing room, idly playing 2048 on her phone to pass the time until Molly's shift ends. Sitting in the comfortable gloom is doing wonders for the headache that has been building between her eyes all day, and when she swipes upwards by accident – “Oh, _bollocks_ ” – she shuts down her phone and puts it in her pocket. She leans her head back against the wall and closes her eyes for a moment. She sighs: a deep breath of fatigue flowing out of her. The changing room is all right. It's the frontier, really – where Molly and her colleagues come to shed their outside coats and step into their underworld uniforms. Where Molly puts up her hair and lets Dr Hooper steady her hands and focus her eyes. It's like – one of those things that Molly told her about. The... Sally frowns a little, trying to remember the details of the conversation in the bathtub a few weeks ago, when Molly had rubbed Sally's feet and told her about her interest in stories that feature characters going from the world of the living to the world of the dead. The... _Limbo_. Limbo, yes, that was it, the place where that man went before he went down to hell proper. That's what the changing room feels like. Being in limbo. Quiet, transitory.

“Hey,” someone says quietly, close to her face. Sally's eyes fly open and her body jerks in alarm. Her arms lift themselves out of their own accord, ready to defend her – 

“Oh,” the someone says, and of course it's Molly. It's Molly, because this is Molly's changing room. “I'm sorry, I didn't mean to startle you.” 

“I – Christ,” Sally says, and rubs her eyes before dropping her arms back into her lap. “I think I dozed off for a moment there.”

“Well, it's nice and dark in here.” Molly smiles briefly, slides a gentle hand through Sally's curls, and leans in to kiss her softly. “Hi.”

“Hi,” Sally says.

Molly brushes a warm touch over Sally's cheek, and then turns around, starting to undo the buttons of her lab coat.

It _is_ nice and dark in the changing room, Sally thinks as she watches the line of Molly's shoulders and the stray hairs escaping from her ponytail as she slips the coat off. But that's not all it is; it's also a place of exchange. Sally doesn't like the morgue, but she's accepted that it's Molly's place of safety and of competence. She doesn't go in often, but she will come to its boundary to wait for Molly. To wait for the dead to give Molly back to the living.

(Sally knows Molly likes the dead because they're not demanding. They don't make her do small talk and they don't watch her work critically. But to Sally, they _are_ demanding – staking their claim on Molly's time, her eyes, her hands, her judgment. When Sally tries to express this feeling to Molly, Molly will say: “Well, Sal, who knows how many of them never got that attention while they were alive?” and Sally won't have anything to counter that with, because _she_ does _her_ job for a reason, too – but privately she will still feel like Molly does a dangerous thing, crossing the boundary so many times.)

“Sorry I took so long,” Molly says when she's done changing, and turns around to face Sally again. 

“It's okay,” Sally replies. She's just happy Molly was able to return whole, and that she was wearing her soft grey jumper with the kitten under her lab coat the whole time – the one that she was embarrassed about when Sally saw it for the first time. The dead can't get her while she's wearing that jumper. Sally puts out her hand to touch it now, that soft, small jumper kitten. She strokes it for a moment, and then runs her hand up Molly's shoulder to her neck.

Molly looks up at her, smiling, and then opens up her arms. Sally steps into it and wraps herself around Molly, pulling her close and resting her cheek against Molly's hair. Molly squeezes her tightly, smoothing one of her hands over Sally's shoulders and pressing her palm against the tight muscle there. She's warm and alive and lovely.

“I missed you,” Sally says.

 

4) When Sally slams through the morgue doors, Molly's scalpel clatters to the floor. Sally slides to a stop, her high heels a bit unstable on the smooth-polished floor. Both of them stare at the scalpel for a second before looking up at each other.

“Molly,” Sally says, a little out of breath.

“Christ – no, okay? _No_ ,” Molly says hoarsely. Her face is tight and the person behind her eyes is Dr Hooper: blank, calm, collected. “I don't – I can't have you here.”

Sally, unnerved as always by the morgue – its bright blue lights and too-clean scents, the feeling of being watched – tightens her coat around herself.

“Well, if you don't answer your phone,” she begins, but Molly interrupts her.

“That means I don't want to talk to you.” She seems a little surprised at herself at that, and her eyes widen. Of course, Dr Hooper and Molly are still one and the same, and something shifts in her mouth, an unspooling of tension. Immediately she loses her look of calm professionalism and now looks as if she could cry. “Look, I came here to get away from you, can't you – _respect_ that, or something –”

Sally looks back at the door she just burst through. Clearly it hasn't just been a boundary all this time for her, but for Molly as well. 

“We _have_ to talk,” Sally says, fear a growing cold point in her gut.

Molly sighs, and rests her weight on her palms put flat on the slab. The corpse on it is silent, without judgment. “I'm not done – thinking,” she says.

“What are you thinking, then?” Sally says, and the knot of anxiety in her insides makes it come out more acerbically than she'd intended.

Molly swallows. She shifts her weight from one foot of the other, the same way she does when she's been standing for a long time and her legs ache. “I don't know,” she says.

“You don't know,” Sally echoes.

There is a sharp, tight intake of breath from Molly. “I don't know if – if I can be with someone who thinks my life is really – so _boring_ , so _inadequate_ , that –”

“Oh my God,” Sally cuts in, raising her voice despite her plan to handle this rationally and reasonably. “I never said any of that, Molly, I only said that you could do _more_ , if you wanted, that you –”

“Shutup,” Molly says very quickly, and then flushes bright pink, but the expression on her face doesn't change. “Just – shut up, because I know what you said and I know what you meant. You can't – can't say those things and then pretend like you didn't, or that it just – came out wrong, when you've felt this way the entire time and _you hate it here_ and you flinch any time someone in your family asks about my job and...” She seems to run out of steam, and trails off.

“That's just not true,” Sally says, but as she says it she feels the untruth of it in her gut like a niggling worm.

Molly seems to read the feeling on her face. “Yeah,” she says, almost blankly. “I really – want you to go.”

“Fine,” Sally spats, “this is so – so _you_ that I should've seen it coming. All you ever do is _hide_. That's the reason you love it here so much, right? To avoid interaction with people who could maybe challenge you a little too much. Or who – God forbid! – actually think you're worth something and that they might want to share something with you. All you ever do is think people can't possibly love you and then make them confirm your hypothesis by shutting them out all the time!”

Molly's jaw clenches. “Go away,” she says, and she looks cold and pale in the morgue light.

“Yeah, I'm going,” Sally says, biting down on each syllable. “And don't worry – I fed your sodding cat before I left.”

 

5) Sally pushes a shoulder against the morgue door and pushes it open with difficulty before poking her head to the gap. “Surprise delivery,” she calls out.

Molly looks up from the file she's working on and smiles, surprised. “Oh, hey, what are you doing here?”

“Lestrade's questioning a witness who's in the ICU,” Sally says. “He told me I could take a break. Can I come in?”

Molly closes the file. “If you want.”

Recognising it for what it is, Sally says, with conviction: “Of course I want.” They look at each other for a split second, sharing a small smile of understanding. Sally proceeds to work her way through the door, being careful not to damage the heavy potted houseplant she's holding in both her hands. 

“Why are you lugging a plant around?” Molly asks as she watches Sally come over with it and put it on her desk with some difficulty.

“Because,” Sally says, and then leans in to press a kiss to Molly's lips. Molly breathes a small laugh against her lips and kisses back, soft and slow. Sally pulls back and reprises: “Because I wanted to give it to you.”

“Oh,” Molly says, eyebrows rising. “ _Oh_. Really? For here?”

“You need something in here that isn't dead and colourless.” Sally very seriously rearranges some of the leaves on the plant. 

“Hm,” Molly says, beginning to smile. “You're forgetting that living things tend to need sunlight. Not much of that around here.”

“You can take it for a walk now and then,” Sally says, shrugging, and then grins at Molly. “Maybe that'll get _you_ some sunlight, too.”

“I have all the sunlight I need in my life,” Molly says, and then _makes eyes_ at Sally, fluttering her eyelashes.

Sally laughs. “Oh, Dr Hooper. That was terrible.”

“Was it?” Molly says. “Maybe, but I think you still want to kiss me.”

“Hm.” Sally looks down at Molly in her chair, and draws her fingers through her hair. “You're very confident.”

“I can see it in your eyes,” Molly says. “I've got very good people skills, you know.”

That makes Sally laugh, and she bends down again to give that laughter to Molly, kissing her deeply. Molly responds immediately, bringing up a hand to clutch at Sally's lapel. 

“See,” she says when they break apart, just a little breathless. “I knew it.”

“Yes, you and your cursed people skills,” Sally says, smiling as she straightens up, and then checks her watch. “I should probably get back to Lestrade.”

“Okay,” Molly says. “Tell him hello from me.”

“I will.” Sally leans down to kiss Molly one more time, briefly, chastely. “Keep that plant alive, all right?”

“I'll try.”

Sally throws a little wave over her shoulder and then goes through the door. It clicks shut loudly behind her, a heavy, sturdy frontier that protects Molly's domain. 

_But now_ , Sally thinks as she goes up the stairs, _there's a little bit of me in there as well._


End file.
